Engineering for Poverty Eradication in Cameroon
Keynote Address Presented at the Annual National Convention of the
Cameroon Society of Engineers, USA, Houston, Texas, June 18 - 20, 1999
by
Associate Professor
College of Arts & Sciences
University of South Florida*
I must begin by
expressing my most profound gratitude to the highly esteemed executive
committee of the Cameroon Society of Engineers (CSE) and others who worked
fervently to make this convention a reality. I am honoured to have been
selected as the convention's keynote speaker from what I conjecture was
incontestably a rich pool of aspirants.
Pardon my
presumptuousness, but I surmise we, as participants of the convention, will be
remiss if we failed to extend our hearty appreciation to the organizers for
their sagacious choice of a timely theme—‘Engineering for Poverty
Eradication’—for the convention. We, as hardly anyone needs to be reminded, are
at the eve of the twenty-first century—a period that is unique particularly
because it is coincidental with unprecedented strides in technological
advancements. What are the implications of these gigantic strides for less
developed countries (LDCs) such as Cameroon? Pessimists perceive the
developments as an obvious source for consternation. In fact, some have opined
that rapid developments on the frontiers of technology promise to further
compound, rather than ameliorate, conditions for residents of LDCs.[2]
Is there indeed a
need to be concerned? Of course not! It is my impassioned belief that LDCs
stand to gain tremendously from the technological achievements of contemporary
developed nations. Some qualification of my stance is in order. The success of
North-South technology transfer (TT) intimated by my position is unlikely to
register any significantly positive results unless engineers, scientists and
others involved in the TT process are able and willing to adapt borrowed
technology and artefacts to their host environment. The immediate task facing
the Cameroonian engineer is therefore to selectively borrow, manipulate, and
employ technology from the North to address urgent problems in Cameroon. The
most urgent of these problems is related to the country's poverty levels that
are growing increasingly worrisome by the day.
The remainder of my
talk will be richly punctuated with cautiously prescriptive recommendations
regarding what meaningful 'engineering for poverty eradication' efforts in
Cameroon will entail. The need to be cautious cannot be overstated. The problem
of poverty is rooted in seemingly intractable sources that tend to vary from
one country to another and not unusually, amongst different regions within a
single country. Thus, it will be foolhardy to adopt a ‘one-size-fits-all’
approach or worse yet, assume adequate comprehension of the problem. If
anything, we are aware that poverty stems from a plethora of complex factors.
The complexity notwithstanding, I venture to identify the following as five of
the leading sources of poverty in Cameroon:
I will discuss each
of these inextricably intertwined sources or causes of poverty in the country
in turn.
Inappropriate
Technology. The
converse of the concept of ‘inappropriate technology’ is ‘appropriate
technology.’ During the late-1950s and early-1960s, when decolonization became
a ubiquitous trend in sub-Saharan Africa, it was widely believed that to
develop, the emerging countries of the South would need to do no more than
simply borrow technology from the advanced nations of the North. This sense of
optimism and euphoria was matched by wanton efforts on the part of LDCs to
indiscriminately transplant technology from their developed counterparts.
However, by the late-1960s, signs indicative of the negative implications of
employing in LDCs technology developed for advanced countries, were beginning
to surface. These signs had hardly made their imprint on the international
development scene, when an ardent advocate of appropriate technology by the
name, E.F. Schumacher released his now classic work, "Small is Beautiful."[3] Schumacher exhorted LDCs to refrain from employing
technology that was never developed for them. Such technology, he contended, is
likely to be antithetical to development efforts, particularly efforts directed
at poverty eradication in these countries.
His melodramatic
tone aside, Schumacher might well have had Cameroon in mind when he advanced
the foregoing argument. Cases in which an adopted technology has helped to
compound, rather than alleviate, the problem of poverty abound in all sectors
of the country’s economy. In the passenger transportation sector for instance,
there has historically been a proclivity towards encouraging the importation of
the latest models of sophisticated transportation vehicles designed for the
well-surfaced and adequately maintained roads of developed countries. Of
course, we know that such roads are almost non-existent in Cameroon. The
implications of this for efforts to eradicate poverty are far-reaching. For
instance, the vehicles tend to not only suffer from excessively rapid wear and
tear but are constantly in need of spare parts and repairs. The fact that such
vehicles are by design technologically sophisticated means both spare parts and
the skilled labour necessary for their maintenance must be imported. The case
of the now defunct Société de Transports Urbaines du Cameroun’s (SOTUC),
which was well-known for its large pool of expatriate mechanics and managers is
illustrative. The importation of labour, an abundant resource in Cameroon, and
the exportation of hard earned cash to defray the cost of spare parts is
anything but a viable strategy for eradicating poverty.
The Cameroonian
engineer must therefore seek to reverse this situation through technological
creativity. As I discussed in my recent article, "Technology Transfer and
Transportation Functioning in Less Developed Countries" in the Journal
of Third World Studies, any "technology that creates the need to train
many local nationals in its application particularly in terms of modifications,
bears the capacity to induce such creativity."[4] This conjures the notion of
adaptation to which I alluded earlier. The Cameroonian engineer will do well to
emulate the example of his/her counterparts in other African countries such as
Ghana and Nigeria, where it is customary to mount the chassis of heavy duty
vehicles (e.g. Mercedez Benz trucks) and all-terrain (4-wheel drive) medium
weight vehicles (e.g. Toyota pick-ups) with locally manufactured bus bodies.
Such creativity is capable not only of generating employment opportunities, but
also significantly decreasing the cost of transportation and guaranteeing
especially market accessibility to impoverished Cameroonians, whose
participation in the national economy would otherwise be diminished.
Another instance of
inappropriate technology is aptly dramatized by the country’s building
industry, which depends exceedingly on imported building materials. Attempts on
the part of authorities to set up facilities capable of producing building
materials with Western origins such as cement, ceramic tiles, and aluminum
roofing sheets often entail prohibitively costly inputs, including foreign
exchange and imported raw materials. Furthermore, such "industrialization"
ventures rely heavily on the regular supply of imported spare parts for
equipment in the production facilities. One consequence of this is highly
expensive building materials, hence housing whose cost is beyond the reach of
most members of the population. Again, this is one nagging situation whose
reversal the Cameroonian engineer is capable of effectuating. Here, the role of
South-South technology transfer—that is, TT between developing countries—may
well be indispensable. Engineers at the Central Building Research Institute in
Roorkee, India have covered considerable ground in their efforts to improve the
performance of local low-cost building materials. For instance, they have
demonstrated the viability of materials that are easily available in LDCs such
as Cameroon. Examples of these materials include, but are not limited to,
These advancements
notwithstanding, a lot is yet to be accomplished along the lines of improving
the performance of local building materials. For instance, there is an urgent
need to device a viable means of fire-proofing roofs of local materials such as
thatch and grass, as well as rendering wood and bamboo less susceptible to
damage from insects. This is where the ingenuity of the Cameroonian engineer
and scientist becomes indispensable. The importance of such savvy in efforts to
eradicate poverty in Cameroon can hardly be exaggerated. For one thing, the use
of local materials as opposed to imported varieties will result in making
housing more affordable thereby guaranteeing every member of society (including
the poor), a decent living environment. For another thing, the use of such
materials will result in the generation of employment opportunities in the
building materials, construction and related industries.
Reducing
Levels of Unemployment. I have already alluded to some of the more obvious
and orthodox poverty eradication strategies. Less obvious, however, is the
promise for poverty eradication held by the 'hi-tech' sector. In a recent
article under the caption, "International Science Cooperation" in the
Journal, Issues in Science and Technology,[5] the authors argue that
engineers and scientists can meet the challenges posed by shrinking per capita
arable land, scarce irrigation water resources, and expanding biotic and
abiotic stresses by simply mobilizing frontier science and technology in the
areas of "biotechnology, information, space, and renewable energy technology
and blending them with traditional technologies and ecological prudence."[6] Furthermore, there is also
the possibility of taking advantage of recent advances in genomics and
molecular breeding, which promise to open up limitless opportunities for
producing novel genetic combinations that are capable of, amongst other things,
resisting the dangers posed by pests and diseases. The potential benefits of
this for farmers are obvious and include significant increases in yields
occasioned by the acquired resistence on the part of crops to pests and
diseases.
Another hi-tech
area with immense promise as a strategy for poverty eradication falls within
the orbit of computers. Yes, I really do mean computers. To gain an appreciation
of the area of computers as a potentially fruitful source of employment, one
needs to first understand that Cameroon currently boasts a large and
proliferating pool of unemployed university graduates armed with the skills for
a viable peripheral hi-tech sector. What these graduates lack are avenues in
which they can gainfully employ their skills and talents. The role of the
Cameroonian engineer in this case will simply be to put his/her entrepreneurial
expertise to work by assembling the necessary resources and setting up local
hi-tech shops capable of maximizing the utility of these hitherto untapped
resources.
Lessons of
experience in such ventures abound especially in Asia. In his piece, "Jobs
for all in the Global Market" in People Management, Steve Crabb
paints a vivid picture of the emerging boom industry of computer software
development in India.[7] He begins by noting that :"The revolution in
information technology now makes it possible for skilled staff in developing
countries to do work that was formerly the preserve of white-coated technicians
in the West."[8] While the exact figures are elusive, it is estimated that in 1995 far
more than 150,000 highly educated people were employed in the software and
electronic data processing sector in India. The facilities harbouring computer
and computer-related activities in that country, as Crabb observed,
"ranged from state-of-the-art premises within modern science and technology
parks, such as the Santacruz complex in Bombay, to environment-controlled rooms
in crumbling turn-of-the-century buildings in city centres."[9] The lesson for the
Cameroonian engineer here is that he or she does not have to wait until a
state-of-the-art facility is ready. An extra room in the family compound will
do just fine with one caveat: it must be fitted with environment-control
devices. Humidity, which is commonplace throughout Cameroon can be very cruel
to computer soft- and hardware.
Where will the jobs
come from for these computer enterprises? As in the case of similar ventures in
Asian countries such as India, the lion's share of the demand for computer
products developed in Cameroon is expected to originate in the West. Western
firms are increasingly outsourcing part of their information technology (IT)
operations to developing countries as a means of circumventing the high cost of
undertaking such operations in their own countries. For instance, at the beginning
of this decade, London Underground was interested in fitting its railway lines
with a new computer system to monitor train schedules, control signals and
generate timetables. It advertised for bids and several came from companies
based in Britain and abroad. The government-owned software company of India won
the contract and was able to complete the project in 18 months at a price far
less than that quoted by British and other European bidders. The potential
contribution of investments in computer and related ventures cannot be
overstated. Witness, for instance, the case of India. In 1986-87 revenue from
the country's software exports were estimated to be $39 million and by 1993-94,
the figure had skyrocketed to $14,200 million.[10]
Poor
Nutrition. One
of the leading factors accounting for poverty within certain segments of the
Cameroonian population is related to inadequate nutrition. It takes little
imagination to appreciate the fact that the genre of work necessary for
securing a decent income cannot be performed by a hungry and under-nourished
person. According to a World Bank study on poverty in the country, most poor
Cameroonians eat only one meal of low nutritional value a day.[11] Sources of protein such as
meat and fish, the study notes, are absent from the poor Cameroonian’s diet.
Apart from the lack of protein in the diet of poor Cameroonians, the quantity
of food consumed by this segment of the population has diminished significantly
since the mid-1980s, when the country's economic woes began. The same World
Bank study also noted that the major impediments to increasing agricultural
productivity include, amongst other things, low levels of available technology,
lack of access to information, the absence of improved seed varieties and other
inputs as well as inaccessibility to markets resulting from lack of, or poor,
farm-to-market roads. Addressing these multiple problems will entail the
involvement of engineers and scientists drawn from multiple fields such as
agricultural engineering, information technology, and civil and transportation
engineering.
High
Cost of Necessary Goods and Services. A defining characteristic of
the poor is their general lack of savings, particularly funds set aside for
"the rainy day." The reason for this has to do with the fact that
basic goods and services such as sanitary supplies, housing and food, cost so
much that they tend to consume all of whatever meagre income the poor have. As
I have already suggested, most of the goods (including basic goods) consumed in
Cameroon are imported and when efforts have been made in the past to locally
produce clones of these goods, the cost always tends to be astronomical. This
exorbitant cost is a function of the fact that the country’s production
facilities depend on imported inputs. It is therefore incumbent upon the
Cameroonian engineer to device innovative means to locally and more efficiently
produce basic goods and services. This will, inter alia, result in
significant reductions in the cost of goods and services that are necessary for
everyday use, and in some cases, survival. Success in this vein ultimately
translates into enormous gains for efforts addressed to combating poverty in
the country.
Women
Specific Needs. Development
programmes have traditionally been gender-neutral. For instance, the promotion
of labour-intensive growth in developing countries as advocated by the 1990
World Development Report, ignores the fact that women in these countries already
expend most of their energy in executing labour-intensive tasks. The
gender-based division of responsibilities in Cameroon, for example, assigns
almost all domestic and related functions to women. Domestic work in this case
is not limited to chores around the house. Rather, included under the rubric of
these functions are such activities as traveling long distances to fetch water,
firewood, and food for household consumption. While exact statistics on these
activities aggregated by gender for Cameroon are hard to come by, data from
other sub-Saharan African countries are enlightening. Take the case of
Tanzania, where women and girls are responsible for transporting 90 percent of
the total volume of necessary household goods and where, on the average, each
woman spends 1,648 hours completing household chores compared to only 531 hours
that an average man spends on similar tasks.[12] In Burkina Faso, the amount
of time that girls between the ages of 11 and 17 spend on household chores is
three times higher than that of boys in the same age-group.[13]
Among the many
implications of this gender-based division of labour is the fact that women
tend to spend most of their time performing household tasks and are thus left
with very little time to indulge in financially remunerating activities. Little
wonder then, that the majority of ultra-poor people in Cameroon and other
developing countries are women. The role of the engineer in efforts to reverse
this nightmarish state of affairs is obvious. For starters, serious efforts are
in order to craft tools capable of significantly reducing the burden associated
with such chores. Cameroonian women, especially those in rural areas, still
depend on crude agricultural implements such as hoes, and have to manually draw
water from deep wells, as well as haul goods on their heads. Not only can more
appropriate and technologically advanced tools reduce the burden associated
with women’s tasks, they can free up time for women to indulge in more leisure
and especially economically rewarding. If nothing else, this will reduce the
high incidence of poverty amongst women as a group. The ingenuity of engineers
and scientists is necessary in yet another area of specific interest to the
Cameroonian woman—the area of food/grain storage and preservation. The absence
of facilities in this area has contributed in no small way to impoverishing the
Cameroonian woman.
To be sure, what I
have done here is nothing more than scratching on the surface of an admittedly
complex puzzle. The remedies I have proffered must therefore be evaluated in
this context. In my humble opinion, the essence of my talk is manifested not in
terms of the specific cautious prescriptions I have dared to make, but in terms
of my attempt to accentuate the role of the engineer in poverty eradication
efforts in Cameroon.
Thanks for your
undivided attention. With your permission, I will once more like to acknowledge
my debt of gratitude to the organizing committee for extending me the
invitation to be here.
Notes
[1]
Ambe J. Njoh, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the College of Arts &
Science at the University of South Florida. Dr. Njoh holds a Diploma in Civil
Engineering from the Advanced School of Public Works, Buea; a Bachelor of
Science in Environmental Design, and a Masters of Regional and City Planning
from the University of Oklahoma. His second masters degree was taken at the
Florida State University in International Affairs. His Ph.D. in Development
Planning was secured from the University of London in 1990. He is the author or
co-author of three books. Additionally, Dr. Njoh has published about 20
articles in peer-reviewed journals. His forthcoming book on Urban Planning,
Housing, and Spatial Structures in Sub-Saharan Africa is scheduled to be
released by Ashgate Publishers (UK) in August 1999.
[2]
Tumwine, Immaculate W. (1998). "Rural Ugandan Women and the Technological
Race to the 21st Century." WE International, No. 42-43
(Fall/Winter ‘97-’98), pp. 12-14.
[3] Schumacher, E.F. (1974). Small is Beautiful. London: Sphere.
[4]
Njoh, A. J. (1999a). "Technology Transfer and Public Transportation
Functioning in Less Developed Countries: An Exploratory Study" Journal
of Third World Studies, 16 (XVI).
[5]
Swaminathan,
M.S.; Tandon, P.N.; and Yongxiang, L. (1998). "International Science
Cooperation," Issues in Science and Technology, 15 (1), pp. 5-8.
[6]
Swaminathan, M.S.; Tandon, P.N.; and Yongxiang, L. (1998) op. cit.
[7]
Crabb, S. (1995) "Jobs for the Global Market?" People Management,
1 (Jan. 26, ’95), pp. 22-5.
[8]
Crabb, S.
(1995), op. cit.
[9]
Crabb, S. (1995), op. cit.
[10]
Crabb, S. (1995), op. cit.
[11]
World Bank
(1995). Cameroon: Diversity, Growth, and Poverty Reduction. (Washington, DC:
Population and Human Resources Division, Central and Indian Ocean Department,
Africa Regional Office. Report No. 13167-CM).
[12]
Njoh, A. J. (1999b). "Gender-Biased Transportation Planning in sub-Saharan
Africa with Special Reference to Cameroon." (Forthcoming) Journal of
Asian and African Studies.
[13] Njoh, A.J. (1999b), op. cit.
*Contact Information
140 7th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Fl
33701-5016
Phone: (727) 553-1509; Fax: (727) 553-1526
E-Mail: mailto:njoh@stpt.usf.edu; Web: www1.stpt.usf.edu/njoh